


From Eden

by Cowboy_Sneep_Dip



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst, Crying, Family, Fire Emblem: Awakening Spoilers, Fire Emblem: Fates Spoilers, Fluff, Gen, I finally let Severa and Cordelia hug, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Reunions, so much crying (most of it is happy)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-01-16 15:05:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18523984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip/pseuds/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip
Summary: Grima falls, Robin vanishes, and peace is restored to the land. in grief and her father's absence, Severa leaves, departing Ylisse and her family for distant and uncertain shores. Now, ten years later, she returns to Ylisse a changed woman, ready to confront the life she thought she had left behind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Schtar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schtar/gifts).



> For Schtar! Thanks for the chance to work on this lovely piece that is so 100% up my alley on all levels. Hope you enjoy!

The salty sea air makes Severa’s skin crawl. 

It’s not that she dislikes the smell - to the contrary, she always kind of liked salt on the breeze, the crashing of waves against heavy wood, the creaking of joints and the flap of canvas sails in the wind. She pulls off her leather gloves and tucks them into her belt to run her hands through her hair. She can feel her hair’s silky sheen turned crisp and dry after weeks on the open ocean. Her boots rest in a half-inch puddle of sea muck on the cobblestones, and she sighs deeply as she brushes her bangs from her eyes.

What she wouldn’t give for a nice, hot bath with some of Lady Camilla’s bath salts. Maybe a dash of perfume, some candles, and - the thought freezes in her mind, sending a pang through her chest. She pulls her bag tighter against herself and considers rooting around for Lady Camilla’s parting gift. Instead, she settles for reaching her hand into the collar of her jacket to the gold chain that rests around her neck. It’s got two stones on it, set into soft gold. One pale blue, the other a deep, murky violet. 

She sighs again.

She had missed Ylisstol, but as she lets her fingers slide over the intricate details of her necklace, she can’t help but feel like she made a mistake, somewhere. Regret sits heavy in her chest, like a stone pulling on her lungs. It was the same feeling she had felt a decade ago - she sat at these same docks, staring out at the same water, off across the sea. Somewhere out there was Valm, and the Mila tree, and…

She closes her eyes and allows herself to rest against the back of her wooden bench. If she traveled in a straight line across the sea across Valm, she wouldn’t find herself in Nohr. That made it hurt even more. It was something she carried with her, then, something heavy and private. Owain and Inigo understood, maybe. But they had left their homes on good terms. They hadn’t left in the shadow of guilt, and grief, and pain, leaving their widowed mother to raise two children alone. Maybe their own homecomings wouldn’t feel so hollow, so forced.

She bows her head and taps her boots against the cobblestone, watching ripples of brownish green seawater in the puddles around the cobblestones, splashing against the grey. She can see her reflection, the tiredness of her eyes, her wind-burnt cheeks. She wishes she could at least quiet the pounding of her heart. She tries remembering the song Camilla used to hum, sometimes, when she was working late at night. After the first few bars, she gives up.

Severa rests her leather pack on her lap and unfastens the clasps, reaching in and rooting around. She smiles as she withdraws a small pouch of dried meat - a snack for the road, Camilla had called it. The spices were Nohrian, and the scent smelled warm and spicy and familiar. She turns a piece over in her mouth, trying to make the morsel last, trying to close her eyes and pretend things were different. 

How strange it was, to be at home after a decade, and feel farther away than ever.

There’s a heavy sound, metal against metal, boots against stone, light and quick and even. Severa doesn’t lift her head, not even when she sees a silvered boot come to a rest at the edge of her puddle, sending out ripples and scattering her reflection. 

“I didn’t think you would show.”

The voice cuts like a knife, deeper than any wound Severa had endured these long years. She keeps her gaze steady, unwilling to look, unwilling to  _ believe _ -

“I got your letter.”

Severa nods. She blinks, surprised to see the surface of the puddle purl with droplets, slowly at first. She blinks again and can taste salt on her lips.

“M-mom, I-”

Even before she lifts her head, even before she can push herself off the bench, Cordelia’s arms are around her shoulders. She manages to wriggle herself upwards, enough to stand, and she throws her arms around Cordelia in return, holding tight, burying her face against her mother’s chest, squeezing so tight she swears she can hear the crack of bone under Cordelia’s armor. 

She’s still shorter than Cordelia, damn her, shorter by a head, but it’s the perfect height to bury her face into Cordelia’s neck and stifle her sobs against her skin. 

“Mom,” she tries again, her voice muffled and salt-stained and hoarse. She pulls her tighter, unwilling to let go, to part even an inch. Her hands are shaking, she can tell that much, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. She smells like armor-polish and magnolias and pegasus-feathers, and nothing ever felt like home so much in Severa’s life. 

“Shhh,” Cordelia shushes her, resting her chin on Severa’s head, running her hands through her hair, holding her tight against her. “Shhh, I’m here. It’s okay.”

“Mom,” Severa gasps, unable to get past that first word. “I’m...Mom, I’m so sorry, I-”

“Shhh,” Cordelia says again, closing her eyes and holding her daughter close. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.” 

But it  _ did _ matter. It had been ten years. Ten years! How could she expect anything from her mother - any patience, any forgiveness, any love? She had shown up like a bolt from the blue, a mysterious soldier thrust through time, and then she disappeared just as suddenly from Cordelia’s life. And now, she...she what?

Disgust coils in Severa’s heart, a black pain that makes her push Cordelia back with shaking hands, blinking tears from her eyes. “Mom, I…” she shakes her head. 

Cordelia smiles, and when she does, the corners of her eyes wrinkle with laugh lines, a careworn smile that is at once curious and kind. It was a smile Severa recognized from her own future - or her own past, as it were. It comes crashing down on her like the waves of the sea against the dock, the pain and uncertainty and guilt and fear, the feeling that she didn’t belong here. This isn’t her mother. Her mother died when she was a child. She wraps her arms around herself and feels her mind sinking, feels the walls coming back up. Its instinctual, practiced, drawing up the barricades, pushing herself back. She sniffles and her soft gaze hardens. 

Cordelia’s smile seems to shift to something sad, something pitying, and it makes Severa recede further, deeper. She tugs her gloves off her belt and pulls them over her wrists. 

“Sorry for such late notice,” she says at last. “I should have just rented a horse.”

“Nonsense,” Cordelia smiles. “It’s a short ride, it’s the least I could do.”

Severa nods. “Did you tie up at the stables?”

Cordelia extends her hand to Severa, inviting her to take it. “I let her graze outside the port. Have you eaten? Do you want to stop somewhere?”

“I’m okay,” Severa says, her shoulders tense. She stares at Cordelia’s extended hand and begs herself to take it. 

Cordelia smiles and folds her hand back into her side, resting it on the hilt of her sword. “Well, shall we?”

Severa nods and follows, her boots heavy against the stone. 

Galder Harbor was a busy place, more so since the end of the Ylisse-Valmese war, ten years ago. When Severa had left, it was a quiet port, mostly home to vessels that fished the eastern seas and brought their catch in to sell in Ylisse, but now, it’s a monstrous place, a network of docks and piers and shipyards, winding stone streets crammed with pedestrians, peddlers, merchants, craftsman, all sorts of people, Valmese and Ylissean and Plegian and Feroxi alike. 

Wispy smoke pours from chimneys and the sounds of hammering, crackling fires, and hooves against stone accompanies the flap of heavy canvas sails and the distant clash of sea against shore. 

The bustle of town gives way to the quiet outskirts, to inns and ramshackle homes, the stables and fields that Severa recognized more readily than the urban development. She had spent time in Galder Harbor, even before leaping back through time with Lucina, but then the fisheries were dried up and the ships were burnt husks. It’s a strange feeling, knowing what could have been. 

Maybe that’s why she didn’t belong in Ylisse. At least in Nohr she didn’t have to close her eyes and shut out the smell of ash and cinders. 

“Severa?” Cordelia speaks up softly, touching her arm. 

Severa realizes her hands were curled into fists. She unclenches them slowly, letting her shoulders sag. “Sorry,” she says quietly.

“Are you okay? We can stop for food. You must have had a very long journey.”

Severa shakes her head and marches on, resolute. It’s almost infuriating - how kind Cordelia is, how caring, how she doesn’t push, even after all these years. Severa’s mind turns with thoughts about what she had abandoned - her mother, her sister...were there new versions of her, now? Had she been replaced? And she couldn’t blame them. Robin had vanished, and then she had, too. She left them alone, to struggle and suffer, to grieve and grieve again, for Cordelia’s lost husband and her lost daughter. She didn’t even have the excuse of being the Fell Dragon.

A pain settles in the pit of her stomach as Cordelia guides her towards her grazing pegasus. 

She settles back in the saddle heavily, letting her legs thump against the beast. It’s not an unfamiliar motion. In Nohr, they didn’t have any pegasi - and in Hoshido, they felt different, smelled different, behaved different. It was like they weren’t quite the same. But this, the smell of feathers and worn leather, of boot polish and oil and that distinctly  _ animal _ smell of the pegasus...she let her hands drift over the hammered lip of the saddle, pressing her nails into the leather. Her mother had replaced the saddle in the intervening years - of course she had, no one should use the same saddle that long, and Severa couldn’t help but wonder how many saddles had been in between. 

“All set?” Cordelia asks, setting her boot in the stirrup and standing up to throw her leg over the saddle. It’s a casual, practiced motion, like second nature. Severa winces, knowing her own fumbling probably looks all the worse in comparison. 

She nods. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Of course,” Cordelia smiles, fussing with the reins. “Hold on tight, back there.”

Severa nods and takes a breath before wrapping her arms around her mother’s stomach. She knits her fingers together below Cordelia’s sternum, some vague and utilitarian approximation of an embrace. Severa is stiff, distant, trying her damnedest not to make it weird. Because she hasn’t seen her mother in years, and now to be so close...she blinked. 

“Ready?”

“Yeah,” Severa mutters, her voice muffled by hoofbeats as Cordelia tugs the reins and sends her mount into a gallop. 

Severa can’t stop herself from gasping as the pegasus takes to flight, its hoofbeats trading out for wings beating back the air in gusts of salty breath. Severa tightens her grip instinctively and leans in, closer, settling against the back of her mother’s silver armor. It’s cold against her cheek, framed in wild tangles of red hair in the wind.

“You okay, honey?” Cordelia asks, turning her head.

“Yeah!” Severa manages to curtly spit out against the wind. “It’s b-been awhile.”

Cordelia laughs at that and lashes the reins, tugging her pegasus into a steep climb towards a bank of clouds. Severa watches the land fall away, the sea and port and green fields drawn in stark relief, like a parchment map come alive in the afternoon sun. She watches the people like ants as the move along the docks, loading and unloading ships, climbing into wagons, casting fishing lines into the sea. And then it’s all gone, vanished in a puff of white as they pass through clouds and punch through the other side, emerging into a sparkling white cloudscape of cumulus and bright sun.

Cordelia tugs the reins again and they settle out into a glide, a less tumultuous speed that lets Severa relax back in the saddle. She doesn’t release her death-grip on her mother’s stomach, nor does she pull back. The rush of wind fills her ears.

“How about that?” Cordelia grins, taking both reins in one hand and turning. “Your old lady’s still got it, eh?”

“Mom, can you please keep your eyes on the sky?” Severa burrows her face into her mother’s back. 

Cordelia laughs again and shifts her attention back to riding. 

Severa is no stranger to the skies, but somehow riding on a wyvern always felt a bit safer than the untamed wildness of a pegasus. And Camilla always made sure she sat in the front of the saddle, so she was sort of sitting in Camilla’s lap, with her arms around her, and - 

It was a different situation, is all. Maybe a bit more comfortable than her face against cold plate steel and her hair flapping in her mouth and the cold wind stinging her eyes and drawing tears along her cheeks. 

She wipes her face against her mother’s back, using the excuse to pull herself closer, to nuzzle against the steel and cloth and bright red hair that she missed so much.

“Careful, dear,” Cordelia breathes. “You’re squeezing.”

“Sorry,” Severa says, pulling back.

They are silent, for awhile, any speech lost to the wind, private thoughts stewing in their heads as they drift through cloud banks and the bright, sparkling sky. Cordelia tugs the reins and drops one hand to rest on Severa’s as they drop, punching through the layer of clouds and into the bright Ylissean day. 

It’s like a punch to Severa’s chest, a hammer against her ribcage, shattering her. She almost falls out of the saddle as Ylisstol Castle comes into view.

Its gold towers sparkle in the mid-afternoon sun, and even from this distance Severa can see the flapping blue-and-silver banners in the wind. She blinks back tears and holds tighter, turning her gaze to look at anything, anything but that stupid castle, the stupid castle town, the fields and glens and creeks. She focuses instead to the west, to the wooded hills, and home, assuming Cordelia hadn’t moved in the last ten years. 

She sniffles, unable to stop tears dripping down her cheeks, and squeezes her eyes shut.

“It’s okay,” Cordelia says quietly, slowing her mount’s descent to free a hand that can rest on Severa’s, lightly prying her closed fist from her midsection and threading their fingers together. 

“I’m sorry,” Severa says hoarsely, knowing her apology is lost to the wind. She’s been apologizing a lot lately.

They land in a clearing in the woods, a meadow bounded by a sturdy wooden fence and stippled with wildflowers. A few horses graze, some with fledgling wings draped at their sides. Severa wipes her eyes with her glove and clears her throat.

“You’re raising horses now?”

“Just boarding them,” Cordelia pulls up on the reins and brings her pegasus to a slow trot. “We built the barn and fences not long after you left, so we board locals’ horses and the mounts of anyone visiting.” She slides off the pegasus gracefully and offers her hand to Severa, who declines, instead opting to flop awkwardly out of the saddle and land with heavy boots against dirt. 

She begins untying her gear back, not looking at her mother, the treeline, or the property beyond. She doesn’t know a lot about dendrology, but Nohr didn’t really have trees, not like this, and Hoshido was so different. Even seeing the gold light filtered through rustling green made her chest ache. 

“Here, let me get that,” Cordelia says, taking Severa’s pack and shouldering it. “Oof, that’s heavy! Bringing some rocks with you?”

Severa gives a half-hearted smile and a polite laugh. “Just some stuff I didn’t want to leave behind.” 

“Of course.” Cordelia smiles warmly and offers her hand for Severa to take. 

Being home again was strange. Even before she left, she had spent most of her time in Ylisstol. She had a room in the castle quarters and everything. She mostly just visited when her parents summoned her, or when Lucina wanted to go riding. 

It was hard to know which details had changed and which she had simply forgotten. The crooked porch railing, the chipped paint around the windowsills, the garden of flowers out front. 

Their house is smallish, two stories and an attic, with broad windows in the front and back. Severa stares at the attic window, recalling climbing through it to reach the roof, to lay against the shingles with Lucina and count the stars. She closes her eyes, knowing that from the rooftop, she could see the castle. 

“I’ll put your things in your room,” Cordelia says, walking up the porch steps and opening the front door. “Take as much time as you need.”

Severa nods numbly, watching the front door shut behind Cordelia. She stands, frozen, hands shaking at her sides. She wishes she hadn’t come back. It would be easier that way, wouldn’t it? To be gone, to just forget all of this, to live a new life with her new name. Instead she was here, back to the front porch she had walked out of ten years in the past, in the dead of night, a bag slung over her back. She had lost that bag on the boat ride to Valm.

She had left because she was hurt, and she was afraid, and she couldn’t handle being those things in a place like this. 

And how much had changed? Certainly not the pain and the fear. She rests her hand on the handrail. But she was a different person now, wasn’t she? New scars, new joy, new pain, stories upon stories upon stories to tell. But just like that, she’s nothing. She’s a failure, a liar, a disappointment, a runaway. It takes every ounce of her strength not to cry as she walks up the stairs to the front door. 

She closes her eyes and listens. Birds, rustling leaves in the wind, soft voices she can’t identify, coming from somewhere. 

She had worked so hard to stop feeling like this. 

She wraps her hand around the doorknob and pulls. 

The house is quiet as she paces through it. There are soft, hushed voices coming from somewhere up above, not clear enough for her to make out their sources. She idly wonders who it is - one of the kids? Her replacement? There are books and toys scattered around the living room, on the couch and table. There’s a fireplace, ashy and dark. Framed portraits on the mantle. She picks one up and stares at it.

It’s a young girl, born before the end of the war against Grima. It was her, almost. A different daughter. A girl with short white hair and a toothy smile and rusty eyes. Severa sets the portrait face-down on the mantle and leans heavily against it, breathing. 

She knew that Cordelia had had children, of course. She HAD to, or else she would never have been born, and Naga knows what kind of nonsense mess that would have been. But it still hurt, knowing that this wasn’t her home, anymore. A different Severa lived here, one with a brighter smile and less fear.

She moves through the house carefully, her boots against wood like the footsteps of a ghost. There are more portraits, paintings on the walls, medals and honors. Decorations from Plegia, gifts from Chon’sin. 

She stops in the kitchen.

Out the back window, into the yard, she can see two children.

They’re young, but she had never been good at estimating ages. The taller one is lanky and awkward, the steps of preadolescence sending her tottering around the grass as a wooden practice sword bounces off her painted wood shield. She had done the design herself - a dragon with red eyes. Her white hair is tied up in short, bouncy pigtails.

Opposite her is a younger girl, just by a few years. Her hair is short and red and messy, double so as she leaps through the grass, her own wooden blade drawn. A cloak flaps in the wind behind her, bright purple and trimmed with gold, a dramatic flair as she fails to land a blow and is sent clattering into the dirt. The other girl lifts her sword and shield in triumph, and the battle cry that comes from her throat makes Severa wince. 

She knows that voice. It’s  _ hers _ .

She closes her eyes and clenches her teeth, trying not to let the regret and pain and sadness creep into her heart, even as she feels it growing, pulsing in her veins. No. This is her home. There is home enough for her, here. She doesn’t realize her hands are shaking until a hand touches her shoulder and she whirls, almost throwing a fist at the culprit.

Cordelia had anticipated her movement and side-steps the blow, rolling it into an embrace, tucking Severa against her shoulder. “You can go out and talk to them, if you want.”

Severa doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to be here at all. She wants to go home, and she hates knowing that she is. 

Maybe she’ll just never be comfortable, no matter where she is. Not in Ylisse, not in Valm, not in Nohr. Maybe it’s a symptom of being a child whose home burned to ash around her. She wonders silently if the others feel the same way.

“Go on,” Cordelia pushes her lightly towards the back door. “I’ll get dinner started.”

The back door slams behind her as Severa steps out into the yard, and the playing children immediately stop to stare at her.

She blinks at them, at the two pairs of inquisitive eyes staring back at her, curious, expectant. 

“Honestly, you need to stop throwing the-” another figure rounds the corner of the house before stopping dead in her tracks.

Severa’s eyes widen. Even before she can finish breathing her name, Morgan drops her armful of toys and bolts across the yard, tackling Severa into a hug, knocking her to the dirt.

“Oh, gods, Sev!” Morgan cries, squeezing tight, burrowing her face into Severa’s neck. “Sev…” She blinks, making no disguise of the tears dripping down her cheeks.

“M-Morgan,” Severa breathes, the shock to her system still processing, arms crushing her ribcage, tears soaking her jacket. She returns the hug, squeezing back. Somehow Morgan always made things hurt less, in her own stupid, bone-headed idiot way. 

Severa thunks her skull against Morgan’s, their traditional greeting. “Missed you, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid,” Morgan repeats the incantation, laughing and pushing herself Severa’s prone form. She kneels in the dirt and helps Severa sit up. “Hey, kids? Come on, come meet your aunt-”

“Selena,” Severa cuts her off. “Aunt Selena.”

Morgan grins her big stupid grin. “Aunt Selena. She’s my big sister.”

“Aunt Selena!” cries out who Severa can only assume to be the younger Morgan. Are they both named Morgan? This is going to get overwhelming fast. 

The younger Morgan throws her arms around Severa, too, tackling her with her considerably lighter weight than her counterpart. 

The older sibling stands over them, arms crossed under a scowl, wooden sword still at her side. 

“Selena,” Morgan says, dusting herself off and standing up. “This is Morgan, and this is Severa. They’re Cordelia’s daughters.”

Severa nods, dazed, pushing the small child off of her and climbing to her unsteady feet. 

“Sev, don’t you want to come say hello to your aunt Selena?” Morgan helps the younger Morgan to her feet and kneels to dust her off. 

“She looks like me.”

Morgan laughs. “Well, I should think so. You are related.”

“Where’s she been this whole time?” The younger Severa takes the younger Morgan’s hand and pulls her back protectively.

“Traveling,” Severa snaps, suddenly annoyed. Gods, was she really like this when she was little?

“Traveling?”

“Did you bring souvenirs?” Little Morgan asks.

Severa nods. She hadn’t exactly brought them to share, but...well, she guesses she can. 

“Aunt Jester, can we go creek-stomping?” Little Morgan asks excitedly. 

Severa frowns at her and mouths “Jester?” and her sister shrugs. 

“No, you both have to get all cleaned up in time for dinner.”

“Okay, okay, fine!” Morgan grumbles, grasping both the younger Severa’s hands and tugging her back towards the house.  

“Jester?” Severa gives a smug smile, and Morgan nudges her.

“We all took new names.” Morgan shrugs. “We had to.”

“Yeah.” 

They stand in silence in the shadow of the farmhouse, neither entirely sure what to say.

“And you?” Morgan speaks up.

Severa looks up, into Morgan’s eyes. Her smile is bright, her eyes deep and kind and understanding, asking but not prying, nudging but not pressing.

“It’s been a long time.”

“I missed you, Sev.”

Severa grabs Morgan’s arm and pulls her into a crushing embrace. She doesn’t say anything, as much as she wants to - every attempted word comes out as a strangled cry. She DID miss Morgan. She missed her sister. She missed her family. She often wondered if it was easier for Morgan - to not remember the old times, the bad times. Maybe that’s why she found it so much easier to stay.

Morgan pushes her back slightly, enough to speak but not enough to part. You see Lucina yet?”

Severa says nothing.

“Sorry,” Morgan cuts herself off. “I didn’t mean-”

“No, I…” Severa pulls herself away from Morgan. “I’m just tired. Sorry.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. Ship from Valm?”

“You can tell?”

“The flight wasn’t enough to blow the stink of sea-salt off you.” Morgan laughs.

“You dolt, I put perfume on!” Severa snaps, and for a moment it feels like it used to. In the grass out back, joking and laughing, the smell of the wind and the leaves and smoke from the something cooking in the kitchen. As if no time had passed at all.

“Come on,” Morgan loops her arm around Severa’s. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

Severa allows her to drag her back into the house, back into that quiet hall of mirrors. It doesn’t feel so empty or dusty this time, the portraits on the walls seem less menacing. Maybe it’s the fading sunlight, the gold creeping through the windows, or the scent of something delicious in the kitchen. Maybe it’s the distance sound of stomping footsteps, laughter, sounds of life and home and family, warm and present despite Severa’s hesitance. She stops in the hallway, listening to footsteps above.

A voice drifts down the stairs, warm and soft and comforting, gruff and kind and Severa’s heart collapses into itself, a black hole in her chest, a void of emotion that consumes her as she watches her father walk down the stairs, a girl on his shoulders. 

Severa can feel something inside her snap. She can’t see anymore, everything blurred and fuzzy, the glare of sunlight too harsh in her tears, like liquid gold in her eyes, and she can’t form words, can’t do anything but stand and tremble, stuttering on a single word. And she’s on the ground, legs given out, gasping for breath and pushing her messy bangs from her eyes. She can feel arms supporting her from behind, but she’s not sure whose, but they feel warm and familiar. She tries to push herself up but she can’t, shaking and sobbing and collapsed in the hall. 

A voice she hadn’t heard for ten years speaks to her softly, gentle reassurance accompanying soft hands that brush tears from her cheeks.

“Shh, it’s okay,” comes Robin’s soft voice. “It’s okay.”

“D-dad,” she gasps, still fighting for breath.

She leans back against, Morgan, who she finally realized was the one holding her, and can hear Cordelia’s voice ringing in her ears.

“Oh my gosh, what happened?!”

“It’s okay,” Robin says calmly. “She’s just startled, I think.”

“Y-y-you were d-dead!” Severa sputters weakly. “Y-you-”

“I know,” Robin whispers, helping Morgan to prop her up and stroking her hair. “I know. But I’m okay.”

Cordelia helps Severa to her feet and wraps an arm under her shoulders, helping her walk down the hall towards the couch. 

Severa collapses into her father’s arms, sobbing with abandon.

“Oh, Daddy, I missed you so much!” she cries. “I’m s-suh-suh-sorry! I duh-duh-didn’t, I d-”

“Shh, it’s okay,” Robin coos, sharing the embrace with Cordelia. 

“M-m-mom,” Severa mutters, her voice choking and hoarse. 

“We’re here,” Cordelia whispers, pressing her lips to Severa’s brow. “We’re both here. We’re all safe.”

Severa nods weakly, allowing the embrace, allowing her muscles to unclench, the windup-spring to uncoil in a puddle of tears and kisses and warmth and kindness. 

Cordelia pressed her to her chest and looks up. “Jester, could you and the kids put on some tea?” 

Morgan nods and takes the two bewildered children towards the kitchen.

“Shh, there, there,” Cordelia coos, stroking Severa’s hair. 

“It’s okay,” Robin hums. “I’m here.”

“I-I-I-I’m suh-suh-sorry,” Severa gasps.

“It’s okay. Just rest,” Cordelia shushes her. Severa squeezes her eyes shut, resting in her parents’ embrace, pain and fear and anger evaporating from her blood as Cordelia kisses the top of her head and Robin squeezes her hand comfortingly. 

 

It’s black tea, warm and sweet as it runs down Severa’s throat. Her hands won’t stop shaking, so Cordelia rests her hand against Severa’s, bracing her grip to lift the teacup to her mouth. It’s a shock, after so many years of Nohrian and Hoshidan tea. Hoshidan tea was bitter, Nohrian tea cold. But this tastes like home. It tastes like late nights in the supply tent, cross-legged, cataloguing with Lucina. It tastes like tricking Inigo into paying for tea and cakes at fancy cafes and then ditching to go fishing with Kjelle. It tastes like her mother making tea and sitting with her in bed after a nightmare. 

She manages a few weak gulps before setting it back down.

“We found him a few years after you left,” Morgan explains, watching the two younger children playing on the living room carpet. Little Severa is trying to teach Little Morgan the rules of some board game that involves little tin soldiers and a big grid, and both are pointedly ignoring the tenseness of the adults on the couch.

“I can’t say I’m entirely sure what happened, myself,” Robin admits, sipping his own cup of tea before adding more sugar. I barely remember anything, but a Ylissean border party found me delirious and naked, stumbling across the border from Plegia.

Cordelia gives a half-chuckle and smiles. “Chrom was called before they even had the chance to cover him up.”

“Quite embarrassing, but not as bad as the pain and confusion I must have caused all of you,” Robin says, suddenly serious. “I...I’m sorry for leaving you, Se-...Selena.” 

Severa takes another shaky sip of tea, unwilling to try speaking just yet. She manages another drink with Cordelia’s support and shakes her head. Her voice is still hoarse and riddled with sniffles.

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Cordelia says.

“I…” Severa blinks. “I ran away. I left you. All I left was that stupid note, and I-” the panic gets the best of her again and only Robin and Cordelia’s arms around her stop her from shaking. 

“Shh,” Robin brushes her messy bangs out of her eyes. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“When you’re ready,” Cordelia says quietly. 

It wasn’t the first time she said that. Severa would have nightmares of the dark future past, nightmares of fire and blood and steel and pain, and she would wake in the night and Cordelia would be there, arms around her, lips to her brow, always with those words. When you’re ready.

And she isn’t ready, but she doesn’t need to be. Because talking about before hurts, and it’s easier to focus on now, on where she had been rather than how she felt. 

Because her younger self teaches her a board game she knows by heart, and both Morgans ask her to talk about her adventures in Nohr, and she digs out of her bag little gifts - precious stones from Hoshidan springs, curious little toys, carved wooden charms, metal jewelry from Nohrian smiths, mysterious Vallite icons with a language she doesn’t quite know. She brought back a box of spices Camilla had gifted her, the perfect blend for all her favorite meals. She had a gift from Corrin, a little music box with Azura’s song. 

She talks about her strange employer, about riding wyverns across dark mountain ranges, tunnels lit with flame, chasms and oceans and spires and towers so high their tops were shrouded in fog. She talks until the children are asleep on the carpet, and Morgan is dozing by the fire, and Cordelia and Robin sit with their hands twined in hers, and she runs out of steam. All the thoughts bubbling in her these long years overflowed and her cup was empty, and she sits in silence, watching the flickering fire, her mother’s thumb gently rubbing her knuckle. 

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, breaking the silence at last. 

Cordelia and Robin exchange glances but don’t respond.

“I was...I was...I shouldn’t have run away. I’m sorry. I…” she takes a deep breath. “I was hurt, and I thought dad being gone was my fault, and, and I thought...I thought if I was gone, maybe things would be better. Maybe you would all be happier without me.” 

“Of course that isn’t true,” Cordelia says.

“No, I...I know. I know that now. I...I did a lot of thinking, and…” she looks up, tears shining in her eyes. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve acted. I always tried to hide my feelings, and...I love you. All of you, so much. And I think, the whole time, my biggest regret was not telling you that before I left.” She sniffs and wipes her eyes. “But I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.” She blinks. “I m-mean, I mean, if you’ll have me back.”

“Oh, Severa,” Cordelia sighs, pulling her closer. “You’re our daughter. This will always be your home. You’ll always have a place here, and nothing could ever change that.”

Severa closes her eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

Severa wakes in her own bed. It’s weird, and she doesn’t like it. She still hasn’t quite unlearned those old habits, groping blindly for her sword, waiting for issued commands or the stern voice of her partner telling her off for sleeping in  _ again.  _ It’s not her fault she needs her beauty rest. 

She pushes herself up to a sitting position and blinks. Sunlight streams through the open window, accompanying a breeze that flutters the curtains with warmth and light. She scoots backwards and rests against the headboard. 

She’s been home for almost a full week now, waking in her own bed, to the sounds of movement and soft chatter downstairs, sometimes with a plate of cooling breakfast on the bedside table, sometimes tea with wisps of steam curling in the morning air. She rubs her eyes and yawns.

She hadn’t slept well.

It hasn’t stopped yet. The nightmares, the crying out in the night, waking with wet on her cheeks and sweat in her bedsheets, tangled and gasping for breath. Cordelia usually comes to her, the wooden walls thin enough to allow her pain to slip through and into her parents’ bedroom. Severa rests her face in her hands and rubs her temples. Headache. 

She slides her legs out of bed and stares at her still-unpacked gear bag in the corner chair, her sheathed sword leaning against the chair’s side. Her nightshirt is sticky with sweat, but the cool air feels marvelous on her skin. The hardwood floor is cold against her bare feet. 

Hers is the attic room, with sloped ceilings converging on a point somewhere above her double bed. There’s a chair in the corner, a desk pushed to one side, beneath the window and the fluttering curtains, and a vanity that still sits empty. Robin had promised to take her shopping sometime, but she had found herself too tired to do much more than sleep and eat. Even now, getting dressed was sluggish and felt like a monumental task in the face of crawling back into bed and sleeping forever. She blinks slowly at the unmade covers and slowly pulls her mercenary jacket over her head. 

The house is quiet in the mornings, with the younger children probably off at school and Morgan doing something with a shovel out back. Possibly a pitfall, hopefully a garden. Severa yawns again as she walks down the stairs. 

“Well, good morning, sleepyhead,” her mother looks up from her book and smiles. 

“Hey,” Severa says quietly. Her voice is hoarse, probably from muffled shouting into her pillow. 

“You sleep okay?”

Severa makes a noncommittal groan and stretches, cracking her joints. “Maybe. What time is it?”

“Just after one.” Cordelia shuts her book and rests it on the table. “Do you want some lunch?”

Severa nods and presses a hand to her growling stomach. Being up half the night made her hungry. She dutifully follows Cordelia into the kitchen and sits at the table to watch her cook.

“Your father is going into town this evening to buy some things,” Cordelia explains. “Tea?”

Severa nods and sits up straighter. 

“He told me to ask you if you wanted anything.”

“Mm, I’m okay,” Severa folds her arms on the table and lays her head down. She feels a hand gently touch the back of her head and starts for a moment, before she realizes it’s just Cordelia. 

“You seem tense.”

Severa sits up, letting gravity brush her mother’s hand from her head. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Nightmares again?

Severa nods. Cordelia purses her lips, a sad expression on her face. She sits at Severa’s side and drapes an arm loosely over her shoulders and squeezes lightly. 

“I’m okay,” Severa says flatly. 

She isn’t quite sure if it’s true. No, she knows its a lie. Things have felt...off. Disjointed. Like she isn’t really here. Because she shouldn’t be, probably. She doesn’t have a place in this world, and watching her younger self run around and play with her sister and her parents just makes that all the more apparent. But it hurts, to think that the only world she belongs to is one of fire and blood.

She tries sitting up again and relaxing into her mother’s embrace. 

“It’s okay,” Cordelia says softly, stroking her hair. 

“I’m sorry,” Severa says, almost inaudibly.

The day passes slowly, with Severa moving around the house like a ghost, like the silt of a streambed that once swirled refuses to settle. She takes time to bathe and fix her hair, she finally gets around to unpacking her gear, she sits on the back porch, she watches Morgan work in the garden. 

“You okay, Sev?”

A shadow is cast over her seat on the porch. “Oh, hey, dad.”

Robin gives a polite half-smile and sits with her. “Feeling okay?”

“I…” Severa sighs. “Yeah, just tired.”

“Seems like you’ve been tired a lot.”

“It’s been a long time.”

Robin nods and hums in agreement. “Your mother’s worried about you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“She thought you’d be happy to be home. We’re certainly happy you’re with us.” 

Severa picks at a fraying thread in the bottom of her jacket. “Sorry.”

Robin sighs. “You don’t need to apologize with us, Severa. It’s okay.”

Severa turns to nod at him, but her eyes are cast down, still unwilling to make eye contact. Apologetic even in her assent. 

“Did you want to come into town with me? It’s just a short trip. We could get dinner somewhere, maybe, after I meet with the Exalt.”

Severa shakes her head. “N-no, I...I’d rather just stay here I think.

Robin rests a hand on Severa’s. “Severa, I just...I think you should try to get back out there. See some of your old friends, maybe. You’ve been home almost a week and haven’t seen much more than the inside of your bedroom.”

Severa pulls her hand away. “I’ll do it when I’m ready.”

“Did something happen?”

“Hm?”

“Did something happen? Is that why you came back to us?”

“No, I…” Severa curls her hand into a fist. “I...listen, I’m okay.” She stands up. “I’m just going to go lay down for a bit.”

“Severa…”

“Dad, please just drop it. Please.”

 

-

 

The other children come home sometime in the mid-afternoon, walking together up the dirt trail from the direction of Ylisstol. Severa spends the afternoon hiding in her room, organizing her things and looking over the drawers and shelves of old belongings. None of it’s dusty - evidently someone had kept the room clean and tidy in her absence, and the knowledge made her heart ache. Was it Cordelia, dutifully sweeping the floor and dusting the shelves, staring at the empty bed where her daughter belonged? Was it Morgan, wondering where her sister had gone?

Severa opens a drawer and sifts through the neatly folded skirts and leggings. The thing she’s looking for is still there, though Morgan had no doubt read it in the intervening years. She pulls a thin leather-bound book out from beneath a pair of frilly lace leggings and sits down on the bed.

It’s old, beat to hell and back, stained with all sorts of unnamed garbage - she can name some of them. Blood, black Risen goop, mud, rain. The pages are scribbled with hasty and unorganized black ink. A diary that she had started long ago. The first entry was detailing finding the book in the rubble of her home. 

Severa turns the pages slowly. It’s a keepsake, at this point, and most if it’s illegible - some pages the ink is smeared and unclear, other pages are missing entirely, torn or burned out. Sketches of maps and plans, relics from another life. Another world. And then the pages are clean. They’re whole, written in neat and tidy handwriting. About a different world.

The pages rustle quietly as she reads. Maybe it could help her anchor herself, remember that this is her life. This is the place she belongs. And then, a simple entry. A single line of ink.

_ I think I do love her. _

Severa snaps the book shut and throws it across the room, and it hits her dresser with a dull thump before clattering to the ground. She throws herself down in bed and pulls the covers over herself, tugging the blankets around her into a tight cocoon. She isn’t going to cry. She isn’t going to cry. She was very good at not crying.

Even if ten years hadn’t passed, what was the point? She was...she was what? The princess of Ylisse, the Exalt’s daughter, advisor to the Lord Exalt and the kingdom. Compared to a mercenary, what was that? And ten years had passed. She had moved on. It was a stupid, childish crush, the product of isolation and deprivation more than anything else. Even after coming back through time, they hadn’t been...well, together. It had been three years before they even saw each other again. She had probably forgotten all about her. 

As she rightly should: Severa had left, sworn off this life. When she took that mysterious job offer, she was choosing that over her old life, over her friends and family. And now trying to force her way back in was bringing nothing but heartache.

“Severa?” Cordelia’s soft voice appears at some point, after an unknown amount of time. “I thought you might like some dinner.”

Under the covers, Severa remained curled tightly into herself. 

“I’ll just leave it on your desk,” Cordelia continued, followed by the sound of footsteps and a plate on wood. Severa can hear her walking, and then the footsteps stop.

“What’s this?” Cordelia asks, and Severa can hear the floor creak as she kneels. 

“Don’t touch that!” Severa shoots herself out from under the bed, tearing the covers off. “Don’t read it.”

Cordelia’s fingers brush the air above the open pages, her eyes drawn to the contents within until Severa bends down to swipe the book off the floor. 

“It’s stupid, just some stupid old journal.” Severa loudly and angrily pulls her drawer open, deposits the journal inside, and slams the drawer shut. 

“I just wanted to make sure you were feeling okay,” Cordelia says, taking a step back to give Severa her space. 

“Yeah…” Severa nods. “Uh, thanks for dinner.”

Cordelia paused in the doorway before leaving, resting against the frame and watching Severa curiously as she sat at her desk to eat. 

“She’s unwed, you know.”

Severa stops mid-way through a mouthful of bread and swallowed. “What?”

“The princess. As far a I’ve heard, she hasn’t taken a lover.”

“Why would I care?” Severa doesn’t look up from her plate. 

“I just...I know you were close.”

Severa’s room is quiet for awhile, her staring at her plate, Cordelia standing in the doorway, a slender shadow, unwilling to intrude on her daughter’s private miseries. Severa takes an unsteady breath. 

“That was a long time ago.”

Cordelia nods and leaves the doorway empty. Severa stares at her window, eyes fixed on the glass pane rather than what’s beyond. Out, past the yard, past the trees and fields, is the castle town. And the castle. And...and her. 

But her vision doesn’t extend that far, just to the circle of light illuminated by their glowing windows, the shadowed treeline black against the deep blue of night, with stars sparkling overhead. 

She remembers laying with Lucina out in the desert, the rocky cliffs of Southern Plegia, sharing the night watch shift, watching the stars. Lucina hadn’t learned the constellations or the myths, so Severa would point to them and recite stories from her old primers, stories of heroes and old gods and princesses and dragons. 

Severa shuts her curtains.

 

-

 

“You’re coming with me into town today,” Robin says with decisive finality.

Severa looks up from her breakfast of lukewarm eggs she had spent the past twenty minutes poking with disinterest. “What?”

“I have some errands that I need to run, supplies to pick up, that sort of thing. I’d like you to come and help me.”

Severa frowns and gives a pleading look to Cordelia, and then to Morgan, both of whom shake their heads.

“Ugh, dad, come on! Can’t I just stay here?”

“We just think it’d be good for you to get out of the house. You know, get some fresh air.” Cordelia stands behind her and rests her hands on Severa’s shoulders. “Your father thought seeing the castle town again might help you feel less uncomfortable about being here.”

“How is that going to make it less uncomfortable?” Severa asks. “It’s Ylisstol. It’s the same.”

“Well, you don’t know that,” Cordelia says. “A lot has changed since you left. There’s a whole Plegian district now, new shops, new clothes.” She smiles brightly. “I heard that a Valmese fashion boutique opened up in the market square.”

Severa hates that that’s what it takes to pique her interest. She scowls. “I don’t care.”

Robin and Cordelia make eye contact. 

“Don’t make me order you.”

Severa gawks. “You’re my dad, you can’t give me orders!” 

“I’m the Exalt’s tactician, high strategist and advisor. I think I rank a little bit higher than a foreign knight.”

“No, no, no,” Severa clamps her hands over her ears. “I’m almost thirty years old, I do NOT need my own father to make me get groceries with him!”

“It’s not just groceries,” Robin says, taking a small notebook out of the folds of his robe. “I need to get some groceries, yes, but Morgan wants me to pick up some gardening supplies, and the Exalt wants to discuss the castle expansion plans with me. It’ll be an all-day affair if it’s just me.”

Severa scowls. “Okay, but I’m not going to the castle.”

“Deal,” Robin grins.

 

-

 

Robin and Severa ride Robin’s horse into the town, through the thickets of forest and over small wooden footbridges crossing babbling streams, through the rocky glen that marked the halfway point, and then they emerged from the forest into the wide-open fields that surrounded the city. Severa keeps her arms tight around her father and rests her head (annoyingly) on his shoulder, watching as the countryside passes them by. It’s strange to be back, to see how little had changed since she had left. Maybe it wasn’t so long, but it felt like a lifetime. It felt like she had been a different person - and in a sense, she had been. Maybe that’s what made it so hard. The Severa that held her father tightly and laughed at his ridiculous jokes as they rode into town was a very different Severa than the angry girl who had thought her father dead, who thought her life worthless and misplaced.

The sun beats down through a hot and cloudless sky, warming her skin - if she had spent more time in the sun the past few days, her freckles would have shown up and dusted her cheeks. 

The castle loomed large on the horizon, the sheer stone walls towering up from the edge of the fields, the gate and the parapets decorated with bright blue banners that flapped in the breeze. Severa could see soldiers patrolling the upper walls, that distinctive blue uniforms and iron helmets, a far cry from the gothic black and gold of the country she had spent so long calling home.

Robin stables the horse outside the city and the two walk together down the crowded streets. 

“So what’s first?” she asks, shouldering past a merchant carrying a heavy crate.

“Well, I need to meet with the Exalt, so why don’t you just familiarize yourself with the city for a bit?”

Severa squints. “I thought you wanted to be with me.”

“Well, you didn’t want to go to the castle.”

“Fine,” Severa shrugs. “Should we meet up somewhere, then?”

Robin nods. “Do you remember the fountain on the east side? That little plaza in the shade of the castle walls? How about there, in say, two hours?”

Severa nods. 

And just like that, she’s alone on the streets of Ylisstol. No, not alone - she’s surrounded by the swirl of crowds, the city streets ablaze with life and laughter, women hanging linens in the alleys, children playing in the street, wagons blocking off alleys to the ire of merchants, life, normal, peaceful, happy life. 

Severa hadn’t spent too much time in Ylisstol, except when she was very young, and then Ylisstol was ash. She didn’t know the streets as well as her friends did, for the most part, but she could make her way around without stopping to ask directions too many times. 

She sticks her head into a blacksmith’s shop, she browses jewelry at a market stall, she uses pocket change to buy a cream pastry to nibble on as she walks. 

She keeps startling herself, not feeling the heft of her sword on her belt, and she gropes for it, checks the ground, and then remembers that she hadn’t brought it. There was no need to. Other than skirmishes with bandits and some splintered remnants of the Grimleal, Ylisse had no enemies. Relations with Ferox and Valm were flourishing, and even Plegia held a cautious but optimistic truce. Aversa was the queen now, Severa recalled hearing, having led her nation’s repair with cold and calculated precision. 

The sun creeps through the sky and Severa makes her way through the quiet streets slowly, like she’s navigating a dream and any harsh movements will send her careening back to wakefulness. She’s in the middle of examining a shopkeeper’s selection of hand-sewn dresses when she remembers the time.

“Oh, crap, dad!” she curses, darting out the door, leaving the welcome bell ringing in her wake. 

She sidles between market stalls and vaults a pile of crates in an alley, trying to get herself to the quiet side streets that border the main market square.The streets are more narrow here, winding and maze-like, multileveled, with stairs and walkways crisscrossing gutters and cart-roads. She stops at an intersection to familiarize herself. 

The sun sinks lower, casting a cool shadow across the lower quadrant of the castle town, turning the stone from bright gray to a muted bluish in shadow. She descends a staircase into an open stone plaza, almost entirely empty except for a few pedestrians crossing. At the center of the plaza is a great marble fountain, elegantly shaped in the image of a dragon, and from her mouth a deluge of crystal water pours. 

Severa stands on her tiptoes and gazes around the plaza. Nothing. Crap. She must have missed him.

She sighs and sits at the edge of the fountain. This is just like her, isn’t it? Well, he’d show up eventually. In the meantime she can enjoy the silence save the distant chitter of birds and the found of flowing water.

“Hey.”

Severa almost falls backwards into the fountain. Instead, she scrambles to her feet and pats her sides, desperately looking for a sword that isn’t there. She whips her head up and -

“Woah, woah, calm down there,” comes a low, steadying voice. 

Severa stares at the voice’s owner.

The years had been kind to Lucina. She seemed fuller, softer, the bony angles of her adolescence grown to slender muscle and a soft, kind face. Where before she was all skin and ribs and gaunt cheeks, she has a softer quality to her, something kindly and warm. She’s dressed plainly, in a black skirt and a button-up shirt, no doubt tailor-fitted,   matched to her high ponytail and her slight tiara that glints is the fading light. She has flowers in her hair. Daisies. 

Severa blinks.

“Hey, Sev.”

Severa struggles to even process what she sees before her. She fumbles on her words, her tongue thick and useless in her stupid mouth. “I...Lu…Luce.”

“I almost didn’t come.”

“What?” Severa can scrape herself together enough to ask that one question.

“When your dad told us you were back, I…” She isn’t looking at Severa, instead she staring into the water of the fountain. “I was so mad at you, Severa.” She curls her hands into fists and blinks slowly. “I was so mad at you for so long. You...you broke my heart, you know? Leaving without saying anything. Without telling me.”

“I…” Severa doesn’t have an excuse. There’s only so many times  _ ‘I was young and stupid _ ’ gets the point across. 

“I just…” Lucina sucks in a deep breath. “I just want to understand. Why...why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t…” Severa blinks and sits on the fountain’s edge, trying not to cry. “I couldn’t...I couldn’t face you. Face him. Your dad. I thought...I thought it’d be easier if I just left.” She looks up to Lucina and reaches a wrist up to wipe the tears from the corner of her eyes. “We didn’t belong here. Or...or, I didn’t. I don’t know.” She can’t bring herself to look at Lucina. “I’m sorry.”

“I had to hear it from Owain. Do you know how that felt?!” Lucina asks. “You could have just told me. You…” She purses her lips and steadies herself. “I would have come with you. You know I would have.”

Severa shakes her head. “No, I...I couldn’t let you. I know you would have, or you would have tried to stop me, and I just…” she curls her fingers around her knees and squeezes. “If you had asked me to stay, I would have. And I couldn’t be here. Not after what happened. Not after...after daddy vanished. I...I’m sorry, okay?!” her voice is suddenly loud in her throat, louder than she wanted. “Is that what you want to hear?!”

“Severa…”

“I loved you, Lucina!” Severa cries out, tears openly dripping down her cheeks. “I loved you so much it hurt! And I couldn’t...I…” she lifts shaking hands to her face to wipe her tears, but they’re only replaced with more. “I knew I didn’t deserve you. I never did. And I thought leaving would make the pain stop. But it did.” She whimpers and blinks. “Every day...every day for ten years, I thought about you. I couldn’t...I...I saw you in everything. In every lonely night, every quiet pond, every bright blue sky and every shooting star I saw I thought of you, and nothing but you. I…” 

She gasps a pitiful sob and clutches her arms around herself. “I loved you so much, and I couldn’t...I couldn’t stop thinking about you. It hurt so much, because I didn’t belong there, either!” Severa rests a hand against the fountain to keep herself from collapsing. “So I’m sorry, okay?!” It takes a second for her to catch her breath again through rasping sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” 

“Severa…” Lucina says quietly, taking a step forward.

“So hate me! Go ahead, it’s what I deserve.” Severa wipes her eyes with a balled fist. 

Lucina shakes her head, and in the movement is shaking uncertainty, trembling hands as she steps closer. “Severa, I…” She blinks, and she’s crying too. Spilling out like water from a broken dam, like the crystal breath of the marble dragon behind them. “I...I’ve always loved you, Severa,” Lucina confesses, trying to force a smile through her tears. “Always. It’s always been you.” She takes another step closer, watching the incredulity take shape on Severa’s tear-stained face. “I was mad at you because I would have th-thrown it all away for you.” She shakes her head. “I don’t care about any of it. We did what we set out to do, and...I don’t belong here either, I...I belong with you.” She cautiously reaches a shaking hand to Severa. “I belong  _ to _ you.”

“I thought about you, too,” Lucina continues. “Every night I would walk on the parapets, and I would watch and I would hope and I would pray to Naga that you were safe and happy, wherever you were.” She touches Severa softly, like she’s afraid she’ll shatter. “I...I was mad at you, but I...I cursed myself for never telling you. For never admitting how I felt. So...so I waited. I...I lost track of the days, but I used to count them. I waited for you. And I would wait longer. As long as it takes.”

Severa stares up at her from her half-collapsed position on the fountain, still crying. “Lucina…”

“I know you just got back, but…” Lucina wipes her eyes. “I thought I owed it to you to tell you. To free myself from the regrets I’ve held onto for so long.” She forces a smile through her tears. 

Severa pushes herself to her feet and takes Lucina’s offered hand, touching skin she hasn’t touched in so long. She threads her fingers between Lucina’s, melding into a half-embrace, their bodies pressed together and brought close by shaking hands. 

“I love you, Severa,” Lucina says quietly, to the face tucked into the crook of her neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too…” Severa says quietly. She pulls back just a little and cups Lucina’s jaw in her hand. “I missed your stupid face,” she laughs, through tears.

“Just kiss me, you idiot,” Lucina mutters, reaching her hand up to grasp the back of Severa’s head and tug her into a kiss. Soft lips meet soft lips as Lucina dips her head down to catch Severa’s mouth. 

Severa’s world explodes with sparks, with fire and love coursing through her veins and tearing through her heart and spilling out from between her lips as she pulls Lucina closer, urging her tighter, urging her to kiss her and never let go, to never be parted again. She lets her lips brush Lucina’s and then she kisses her again, deeper and stronger, cupping her face with both hands and stroking the damp skin and the tangled hair, and Severa never wants to be parted from that bliss ever again - the flowers in her hair, the scent of vanilla on her skin, the taste of her lips and the warmth of her breath and the beat of her heart against Severa’s body.

It’s perfection, and Severa hates the word, but gods dammit it’s perfection. It’s like nothing she’s ever wanted so badly, and it takes all of her strength not to pull Lucina closer, to collapse onto the ground and never let their embrace be broken.

Lucina parts first, pulling back, gasping for breath and wiping tears from her eyes, unwilling to pull herself from Severa’s arms and clutching her head to the crook of her neck.

“Severa…” she whispers, hoarse and shaky.

“I’m sorry,” Severa says into her collarbone. “I’m so sorry.”

Lucina pulls back and takes Severa’s face in her hands. “Never leave me again. Okay?”

Severa nods, a smile cracking through her tear-stained face. She lets out a gasping laugh and kisses Lucina again, wrapping her arms tightly around her.

Lucina’s body is warm and soft, and Severa can’t remember a time she’s ever felt so inviting. They had embraced in the past, even kissed, sure, but Severa could feel Lucina’s ribs beneath her thin skin and threadbare clothes in those days, and it was the desperate huddle of adolescents seeking connection in an empty and heartless wasteland. This wasn’t like that, this was the heat of Lucina’s body, the softness of her skin, of her clothes, her hair, her lips, full and soft rather than cracked and bleeding. This was love, not desperate and clawing, but patient, and kind, and welcoming.

“I love you,” Severa says again, quietly.

“I love you, too,” Lucina replies, pressing a chaste kiss to her brow. She lets out a sigh into the deepening darkness as the sun casts the sky in streaks of orange and gold. 

Severa suddenly pulls back and scowls. “That jerk! My dad put you up to this, didn’t he!”

Lucina laughs and puts a finger to her lips. “I couldn’t say.”

“Ugh, he’s been trying to get me to come into town all week! Was I making you wait even longer?!”

“It’s okay,” Lucina laughs and her voice is like music as she takes Severa’s hand in her own. She squeezes. “It was enough for me to know that you were safe. I knew you’d...take your time.” She smiles and presses her lips into Severa’s cheek. “In your funny Severa way.”

Severa furrows her brow. “What’s THAT supposed to mean?!”

Lucina laughs again, and even Severa can’t bring herself to be irritated by it. Lucina lets her hand slip from Severa’s fingers and skips ahead, light and laughing. “Owain told Lissa as soon as he got back,” Lucina turns. 

Severa frowns. “Owain is back?! What?!”

Lucina nods. “He’s up at the castle with his moms.”

“That idiot!”

“What?!” Lucina latched onto Severa’s arm as she stormed past.

“He’s going to pay for leaving me on that dock in Port Dia!”

“S-Sev!” Lucina hurried after her. “W-wait, please don’t punch my cousin! Please stop rolling your sleeves up!”

 

-

 

Lucina twines her fingers through Severa’s as they walked the wall of Ylisstol Castle, watching the sun sinking low behind the mountains on the horizon. It seems like they can see forever here, across the fields and forests, stretching out into the infinite horizon. The snowcapped peaks of the mountains in the north, along the Ferox border, and the flattening of the land to the west as the rolling hills turn to sand and rock. 

Severa and Lucina talked and laughed, sharing stories of their time apart, of Severa’s duties in service to the Princess of Nohr and Lucina’s travels around Ylisse and beyond. She had visited Tiki many times in the intervening years, both in devoting to Naga but also to spend time with dear friends. 

“I have a kid now,” Severa says flatly as they stare out from the wall.

“You have a WHAT?!” Lucina cried out. “Why didn’t you tell m- oh, I don’t like that face. Are you pulling my leg?”

Severa laughs. “He’s just a chicken, don’t worry. A friend got him for me as a, uh, a gift. Well, I guess it’s because I lost a bet. It’s not important. Are you ready to be a mom?”

“Oh, gosh,” Lucina laughs. “It’s all so sudden! Is he toilet trained?”

Severa smacks her. “Ugh, don’t be gross! He’s very well-behaved.”

Lucina stifles a giggle. “Okay, chicken, got it. Anything else I should know?”

“Uh, I have like, a hundred more scars than before.”

“Oh?” Lucina shifts behind Severa and wraps her arms around her stomach. “Any of them sexy?” She rests her chin on Severa’s head. 

“Why are you so dang tall?!” Severa squirms in protest but allows it. Lucina smells nice, and her arms are warm. “No, none of them are sexy.” She scowls. “Mostly just like, burns and stuff.”

“Mages?”

“Mmhm.”

They stand like that for awhile, Severa nestled in Lucina’s arms, both of them facing out at the great swath of Ylissean land that spreads out before them. 

Severa closes her eyes and allows herself to sink into Lucina, feeling that maybe, just maybe, if Lucina was there. Ylisstol didn’t need to feel like home. Neither did her bed, or the crackling fireplace in her parents’ living room, or the streets of the castle town. Home was this, watching the sunset, watching the sky turn from orange to streaks of purple and beyond, wrapped in Lucina’s arms. Lucina is her home. Lucina is her king, always her king, no matter what world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and thanks again to schta-r for commissioning me! This was a super fun project to work on, and I'm still thankful that I got to write 30-year-old Lucisevs shdfjhdf

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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